During the recent blockade on the Hammersmith and City and Circle, work took place at Paddington on both Crossrail and the station upgrade works. The works largely focused on the demolition of the old disused taxi ramp at the station, and the removal of a canopy that sits above the Hammersmith & City platforms (hence the need for the blockade). More notably, the old disused Bishops Road ticket hall was finally demolished, as was the redundant cable bridge running over the line. The old lift ...

Bond Street station, at the heart of London’s West End, is due to have a costly upgrade, with main work starting from 2011, and is due to be finished before the arrival of Crossrail in 2017. At the moment 155,000 passengers use the station every day, and that is expected to increase to 225,000 by 2017 with the arrival of the new cross-capital line. This is the third major station renewal in twelve months to be awarded. Bond Street’s facelift has been awarded to Costain Laing O’Rourke ...

This month saw widening work on Blackfriars bridge, photos of which are below. The major lifting work had been completed and the new ribs on the eastern side are in place. At the time the pictures were taken, the span nearest the north bank had not been widened. The new ribs were placed using a floating pontoon. The first two images are a few of those that featured in the last New Civil Engineer (who hopefully won’t mind us including them here) show how this was carried out. At the time ...

Some more ELL pictures here, starting with a quick look at the train we boarded on our way to Shadwell. Unsurprisingly, there’s little difference between the ELL’s rolling stock and the 378s on the NLL. Looking down the entire length of a four-car unit as it winds along the track however is, we can report, even more vertigo-inducing than doing so on a three-car. Secondly, with the assistance of a random hand that happened to be lurking nearby, we were able to get a quick look beneath ...

LR was lucky enough today to spend some time on the ELL ahead of its upcoming reopening. Although there wasn’t the time (or permission) to stop everywhere and photograph everything, we were able to get some good pictures of New Cross Depot and some of the new stations. The depot photos are below (with some background for each one) and the station photos will follow shortly. Firstly, the depot itself includes the new Integrated Operations Centre for the ELL – the thoroughly concrete ...

West HampsteadUnder the unfinished stub of the new footbridge and lifts at West Hampstead Thameslink life is begining to stir both on the embankment and the former track bed of the up and down Hendon lines. The lower slopes of the embankment have been cleared of trees and whilst builders cabins have sprouted like McDonalds prebuilt drive through branches, building materials are being accumulated on the track bed ready for the start of construction of the new station entrance in Iverson Road. The ...

Whilst attention has been focussed, not unnaturally, on the now imminent reopening of the East London Railway, it is not the only completely rebuilt railway show in town. The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) extension from Canning Town to Stratford International is progressing well and is set to open this summer. The six kilometre extension runs parallel to the eastern end of the Jubilee line’s route and is built on the trackbed of the latter day North London Line to North Woolwich. In addition ...

Things are looking advanced at New Cross Gate: Looking towards New Cross and North: A Dive Under (with the emphasis on the “dive”): Finally, the Footbridge at Trundley, which sadly has already been “christened”: Thanks to Daimler_fan for the pictures.